Snapped

October 5, 2009
In Brown’s latest, four New York friends find money doesn’t buy happiness and love doesn’t either, especially when it’s confused with lust. Latoya Blake’s a fashionista realtor who’s flamboyantly single and distrustful of men because of a horrific secret in her past. Dominique Storms has a successful music industry job and a lovely 13-year-old daughter, but she’s obsessed with an incarcerated man. Former model Camille Bingham is married to Frankie B., the trusted associate of a dying Manhattan crime lord, Doug Nobles, and she rightfully suspects her honey’s getting far too close to Doug’s daughter, Gillian, who’s poised to take over after her father dies and Baron, her dangerously out-of-control brother, is out of the way. Camille’s younger sister, Misa, yearns to be rich like her sis, but is a neglectful single mother of a three-year-old pursuing a relationship with the sadistic Baron. Brown makes these desperate women amazingly sympathetic even as they make foolish choices, and the same goes for Frankie B., despite his appalling mistreatment of Camille. It all adds up to some seriously twisted problems leading to some cliffhanging shockeroos that undoubtedly mean a sequel is on its way.

September 28, 2009
Established street lit author Brown (Flirt; Twisted) offers up an epic tale of betrayal. Thirty-year-old Camille is wifey to Frankie, a player in the drug game connected to a powerful family who took him under their wing as a teen. Although Frankie is like a brother to Baron and Gillian, what's up with Gillian's late-night phone calls? Is something going on besides crime business? Camille begins to think so. Brown'sAstory is one of deception and complicated relationships. Camille's friends Toya and Dominique have serious love issues of their own, but lust takes a backseat when violence explodes during a gangster party. Verdict Brown's plot takes some time to get off the ground, but once the action starts, it comes fast and furious. Readers who like delving into complex relationships and characters creeping behind one another's back will be drawn into this story involving five different love liaisons.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.